THE MYSTERIES OF AVALON: CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Where is Avalon?

The tradition that the Arthur of legend was buried at Glastonbury in Somerset, England, is a well-established one. But certain problems regarding the account of the exhumation of the great king’s bones in 1190 CE have called into question the veracity of the tradition. That it was politically expedient for Henry II to quell rumours among his Welsh and Cornish subjects of Arthur’s imminent return is undeniable. It now seems unlikely that Glastonbury, while still an ancient sacred site, is the real Isle of Avalon, and that we had best look elsewhere in Britain for this Celtic Otherworld localization.

Some odd details surround the ‘discovery’ of King Arthur’s grave at Glastonbury. These details have been discussed at length before by scholars, but the conclusions drawn from them have varied. First, a 6th century Arthur (the usual date ascribed to his floruit) would not have been buried in a hollowed oak, as the account of Gerald of Wales insists. The skeleton found in such a coffin would have been of the Bronze Age. We may compare the Bronze Age warrior found buried in a dugout canoe, another canoe covering the first, in the barrow at Loose Howe on Danby High Moor in the North York Moors. As Glastonbury was surrounded by extensive marshland, the ‘hollowed oak’ was almost certainly a dugout.

Second, a 6th century Arthur would have had his grave marked by a stone bearing Roman capitals. The formula of the inscription would have been something like:

HIC SEPVLTVS IACIT ARTVRIVS

‘Here buried lies Arthur’

Instead, the monks at Glastonbury claimed to have found a lead cross buried beneath the coffin cover. Drawings of this cross reveal the form and content of the inscription (HIC IACET SEPVLTVS INCLITUS REX ARTVRIVS IN INSULA AVALONIA/’Here lies buried the famous king Arthur in the isle of Avalon’) to be of the tenth century, not the sixth century. This would seem puzzling, were it not for the fact that 12th century monks could easily forge an inscription in such a way as to make it seem to be from an earlier period. We know that they did this with manuscripts.

An alternate theory has been proposed: that the grave was originally discovered in 945 CE, when St. Dunstan, the Abbot of Glastonbury, erected a masonry wall around the cemetery and had the area raised. At this time the original stone marker would have been removed, and the lead cross fashioned and placed inside the coffin. The whole was then covered over and forgotten, only to be rediscovered in 1190 CE.

The objection to this theory is that so remarkable a discovery in the 10th century would certainly have been recorded. Furthermore, the grave of a worthy such as Arthur would have been marked in such a way as to be readily noticeable to future generations, i.e. it would not have been left unmarked with a mere lead cross placed within the coffin. That St. Dunstan and his monks would have had some reason to keep the location of Arthur’s grave secret again makes no sense, as Dunstan was himself English, not British. Furthermore, I’ve been unable to find other recorded instances in which such a cross or similar inscribed memorial object has been found inside an ancient coffin.

All in all, the theory that Arthur was reburied, but his grave left unmarked, is unacceptable. This being the case, we must reluctantly admit that in all likelihood the Glastonbury burial of King Arthur is a forgery. The possible financial reason for committing such a forgery has been mentioned elsewhere. Primarily, the monks were interested in attracting more pilgrims to Glastonbury, as there had been a disastrous fire and money was badly needed for rebuilding.

On Hadrian’s Wall, which forms the dividing line between England and Lowland Scotland, there are two Roman forts of particular interest to students of Arthurian legend. One, at Castlesteads, was called Camboglanna. This Old Celtic name lies at the root of the Welsh place name Camlann or Camlan, the site of Arthur’s death in 537 CE according to the Welsh Annals. If Camboglanna is where Arthur died, then it is certainly not a coincidence that the only place in Britain known anciently as Avalon is located just under 14 miles west along the Wall at Burgh-by-Sands.

The Aballava Roman fort, now on the edge of marshland near the Solway Firth, was referred to in the early Ravenna Cosmography as Avalana. This place name means, literally, the ‘place of apples’. Camboglanna is on the Irthing, a tributary of the Eden River. The Eden empties into the Solway Firth very near this fort. A dedication to the goddess Latis was found at Aballava. She is the goddess of open bodies of fresh water, a literal ‘Lady of the Lake’. What we appear to have with Arthur at Avalon with the Lady of the Lake is Arthur at Aballava/Avalana with Dea Latis. I will have more on the Lady of the Lake in Chapter 3.

Urien Rheged, whose father Cynfarch was Arthur’s cousin, was married to Modron, i.e. Matrona, the Mother Goddess, daughter of Aballach, a personification of the Irish Ablach, from Emhain Ablach, the apple tree otherworld. Aballach was thought of as the founding king of Avalon, i.e. of the Aballava fort at the west end of Hadrian’s Wall, just across the Solway from the homeland of Urien.

Emain Ablach, chiefly because it was associated in Irish tradition with the god Manannan mac Lir, was wrongly identified with the Isle of Man. Another theory holds that Emain Ablach is, in reality, the island of Arran. However, the only important ‘apple-place’ which actually bears an apple name is Aballava, which is geographically situated roughly between the Isle of Man and Arran. Emain has been connected with the word for twins in ancient Irish, as the folk etymology story attached to the Irish royal site of Emhain Macha makes clear. But as we shall see in Chapter 6, Emain Macha actually means ‘the Swift One [Imona] of the Plain’, a name for a horse goddess. Emain Ablach is the thus the ‘apple-place of Imona’. An Arthur who fell at Camboglanna could have been brought down the river system in this region or carted along the Roman road to the Avalon that was Burgh-By-Sands. The actual Roman period cemetery at Burgh-By-Sands/Aballava is said to have been to the south of the fort. Fragments of a tombstone of one ‘Julius Pi[ ]linus… a Dacian tribesman…’ were found there.

Alas, a location of the cemetery to the south of the fort puts it near the vallum, possibly destroyed by the building of the modern canal and railway. Two other tombstone fragments were found at Burgh-By-Sands. They were in the care of Tullie House Museum when they disappeared.

While it is impossible to know whether Arthur was buried in the Roman period cemetery of the Aballava fort, this place must remain a primary candidate for the location of his grave.

According to the early 12th century History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth, the author responsible for the first, full version of the Arthur tale, there may have been yet another Avalon. Geoffrey placed Arthur’s final battle of Camlann on the Camel River in Cornwall. He may have been aware of the Old Cornish word auallen, ‘Apple-tree’. Old Welsh has aballen and Breton aualen. The forms auallen and aballenn are recorded from the 12th century. Most importantly, Geoffrey never identifies his ‘Avallonis’ with Glastonbury.

If we follow the Cornish coast north from the Camel and pass by Tintagel, the birthplace of Arthur according to Geoffrey’s account, we arrive eventually at Appledore in Devon, situated on a neck of land or headland jutting out into the confluence of the Taw and Torridge Rivers. This town was le Apildore in 1335 CE. The name is Old English and means ‘Apple-tree’.

Obviously, Geoffrey’s Avalon, if derived from the Cornish, was a suitable substitute for the English name Appledore. The ‘Insula’ or island of Avalon/Appledore would have been used in the same sense as ‘isle’ is used in Isle of

Purbeck, Isle of Portland, or Isle of Thanet. In other words, Geoffrey’s Isle of Avalon may well be the neck of land or headland of Appledore.

If so, Appledore was merely Geoffrey’s substitute for the real Avalon in the North – the Roman fort of Aballava at Burgh-By-Sands. The latter is the only Avalon actually called such that was near a Camlann site. None of the Cam-river or town names in southwest England preserve a form that could have become the Camlann of the Welsh Annals.

A Note on Northwestern Wales as the Site of Arthur’s Grave

There are a few Camlans/Gamlans in northwestern Wales or Gwynedd.  The presence of these sites has prompted various Arthurian scholars to propose that Arthur fought his last and fatal battle in this region.  The modern champions of this notion are Steve Blake and Scott Lloyd, whose book PENDRAGON: THE DEFINITIVE ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGINS OF KING ARTHUR, was released in 2003 by Lyons press.

We cannot ignore these Camlans or Gamlans (the most noteworthy being the Afon Gamlan, a river) when searching for a historical Arthur.  Unlike the placement of Camlan (or Camlann) in Cornwall, something done by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his HISTORY OF THE KINGS OF BRITAIN, Gwynedd can claim to possess real candidates for Arthur’s final battle site.  The only other known site that qualifies linguistically is much further north, and I discuss the northern location in my own book, THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY.

Blake and Lloyd place their trust in a very late medieval source, the VERA HISTORIA MORTE DE ARTHURI, a work dated in extant MSS. to c. 1300, although perhaps to originals dating between 1199 and 1203.  According to Blake and Lloyd, the VERA HISTORIA probably was written in Gwynedd.  I will not contest this point, as it may well be correct.

The importance of the VERA HISTORIA lies in its placement of Arthur’s interment – and thus of Avalon – in Gwynedd.  Although Blake and Lloyd are familiar with the Gwynedd tradition which places Arthur’s grave at Carnedd Arthur near Cwm-y-llan or Cym Llan (an error for Cwm Llem, the Valley of the river Llem), they choose to ignore this bit of folklore and instead settle on Tre Beddau near Llanfair, well to the east on the Conwy River, is the actual burial place of the king.  They deduce this from the fact that the VERA HISTORIA states that the grave is near a church of St. Mary (in Welsh, Llan-fair), and that archaeologists have recently uncovered a Dark Age or 6th century cemetery at Tre Beddau.  [Note: Cwm Llan is a very clumsy attempt at rendering Camlan, and is obviously spurious tradition.]

Unfortunately, the authors of PENDRAGON also choose to ignore the description of the burial place of Arthur as preserved in the VERA HISTORIA.  In their own words, the burial of Arthur after Camlan is told as follows:

“… the VERA HISTORIA describes the funeral of Arthur as taking place at a chapel dedicated to the Virgin, the entrance to which was so narrow that the mourners had to enter by first forcing their shoulder into the gap and then dragging the rest of their body through the opening.  While the funeral took place inside the chapel, a large storm blew up and a mist descended, so thick that is was impossible to see the body of Arthur – which had been left outside, as it would not fit into the chapel.  Following the storm the mourners came out to find that the body had gone and the tomb prepared for Arthur was sealed shut, ‘such that it rather seemed to be one single stone’.”

Now, this passage quite obviously DOES NOT portray a 6th century Christian cemetery.  Rather, it is a fitting description of a ‘chapel’ comparable to the “Green Chapel’ of SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT.  In other words, the said ‘chapel’ is a Neolithic chambered tomb, whose passage is so tight as to barely allow the entrance of the mourners.

Furthermore, we are talking about TWO conjoined passage tombs – one that is the chapel of the Virgin, and the other which mysteriously receives the body of King Arthur.  In all of Gwynedd, there is only one such ancient monument: that of the double chamber tomb of Dyffryn Ardudwy not far west of the Afon Gamlan.  One of the two chambers of Dyffryn Ardudwy is actually known as Coetan Arthur or Arthur’s Quoit.   The “Virgin” is here a Christian embellishment on what would have been a pagan goddess associated with the Otherworld site.

The grave of Arthur discussed in the VERA HISTORIA is thus a product of folklore only.  It can thus be dismissed as an actual grave of Arthur.  Granted, we cannot so easily dismiss the Camlans/Gamlans in northwestern Wales.  But given that a much better candidate for Arthur’s Camlan(n) is found in the North, I see no reason to dwell on these Welsh sites.

Since writing this chapter, Dr. Jessica Hughes of CADW has sent me information via snail-mail that adds important details to the description of the Dyffryn Ardudwy chambered tombs.  To quote Dr. Hughes:

“The Chambered tomb at Dyffryn Ardudwy has been known as Coetan Arthur in the past, indeed antiquarian reports of the site refer to Dyffryn as ‘Coetan Arthur’.  However, the name appears to refer to the whole of the monument as opposed to a particular chamber.  Interestingly (and maybe somewhat confusingly), one mile to the east of Dyffryn lies another chambered tomb known as ‘Cors-y-Gedal’.  This was also known in the past as ‘Coetan Arthur’… Regarding whether there is a church of St. Mary in proximity to Dyffryn Ardudwy, I have found a church 4 miles north of Dyffryn in the village of Llanfair. “

The enclosed Detail Report on this Church of St. Mary states that Llanfair was dedicated to Mary “by at least the 12c when Gerald of Wales and Archbishop Bladwin stayed there in 1188…”